


space, the final frontier

by onearmedscissor



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Mutual Pining, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 10:08:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16385954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onearmedscissor/pseuds/onearmedscissor
Summary: Stardate 50250. Lieutenant Commander Anderson had been the Chief of Security on USS Detroit for more than two years now and while by all standards, the mission was only just beginning, the thought of retirement already started surfacing in the back of his head. With the tensions growing high at the edge of the Alpha Quadrant, Starfleet came up with the «Android Integration Program» for several Galaxy-class starships and USS Detroit is a part of it.Hank decided it was a bit too early to think of retirement just yet.(it is what it is - a Star Trek AU that is kinda tied to DS9 but not really. the background events are the same and mentioned briefly but none of the st characters are named nor will be making an appearance in this work)





	1. these are the voyages

**Author's Note:**

> *mashes two of my special interests together* that is certainly something EVERYONE else will enjoy as much as i will

Hank tried his best to stay awake during the senior staff meeting that Fowler had called up right before they were about to dock at McKinley Station in Earth's orbit. Not only his sleepiness could be blamed on the excessive amount of Klingon bloodwine he'd had to drink last night (blame Jimmy, that fucking El-Aurian could make you talk xyr own ears off without uttering a single word, the damned Listeners or whatever they called themselves), but also he had an early start due to returning to Earth to complete some necessary repairs and updates. Security staff did not have that many obligations during docking procedures as much as the engineering staff did for that matter, but as a Security Chief Hank had to be up and running at 0500 sharp. Also Ben, who was sitting near him, could not stop mumbling about how much he'd missed his wife and kids and how much he could not wait to finally take them aboard as his son had graduated Starfleet Academy this year.

God damn, Hank needed some more bloodwine.

Fowler, for some unknown fucking reason decided to commence the meeting with a small lecture about android development. Federation, no matter how big and ever expanding was small in that retrospective and rumors about androids having basically been granted the status of a new species spread within two weeks all the way back to the Neutral Zone some four or five years ago. After Fowler had said something about “progress” and “accepting them as people”, something clicked in Hank's head. He might be hangover and tired, but he wasn't a fool. He could see where the Captain was slowly leaning.

“Starfleet Academy had 15 android graduates this year,” added Jeffrey after a small pause. “All of them had completed training in different specialties and were granted the ranks of ensigns. Starfleet has assigned five androids to three Galaxy class starships participating in the android integration program each.” Captain paused again.

Hank noticed that people around the room threw cautious glances at the Captain. Boy, this was about to get interesting.

Finally, Fowler decided to drop the bomb.

“And Detroit is one of the ships participating in said program.” said Captain, without changing his tone. Hank did not drop his gaze from Captain's rigid frame, but he heard people muttering “what the hell”'s and such, beside him Ben went red, which he noticed with the corner of his eye. Suddenly, Hank felt more awake.

Ignoring the small commotion, Captain spoke up again.

“One of the androids is assigned to the medical compartment,” he then looked at Tina Chen, the CMO. She nodded shortly. Hank never took her for being a xenophobe, or maybe that was just her bedside manner speaking.

“Another is assigned to engineering”, continued Fowler, looking then at Ben, who immediately became red again, almost matching Captain's uniform. Hank heard Ben complain numerous times, that some “damned tin-can” was beating his son at every class in command track. Hank chuckled softy to himself, which had not escaped Fowler.

“And another one”, he started, looking at Hank himself, “is assigned to security.” he finished, looking pointedly at Hank. He did not give a shit about androids, the entire situation amused him if anything, so he just gave Captain the thumbs up and went back to looking for people's reactions.

“The remaining two are assigned to command and counselor duties respectfully”, Miller, the First Officer, shrugged and gave a short nod. “As you all may know, my previous counselor, T'Lar, celebrated her 183rd birthday two weeks ago and had retired to her home world, when we made our stop at Vulcan six days ago. That actually makes our ship the first and so far the only one to have an android counselor on board”, finished Fowler.

Android counselors, Hank chuckled to himself. They could program them to feel empathy? What's next? Ferengi philanthropists?

Hank noticed the general air of discomfort and uneasiness around the room. Two years into the mission and this happened, just as Hank kind of started thinking about a retirement plan that doesn't involve consuming numerous liters of bloodwine and watching action holotapes every day. Now, he thought, that just might wait for a while longer.

The tension around the room could not be justified for any reason. No matter how much the humanity had advanced, no matter how many first contacts were commenced and how many new species joined the Federation every year, people were still fucking terrible. Poverty and famine were the words only read in Earth history books, the concept of war was foreign to a lot of planets which had been members of Federation for a long time, but all of that existed outside. Which was the rest of the fucking universe. Not to mention the occasional sparks of xenophobia everywhere. Federation had two faces, and frankly, both of them were fucking ugly to Hank's taste.

But none of that was about him. This was indeed about Federation trying to be as progressive as possible, but also earning brownie points by accepting something (or someone?) created by a human as an entirely new species and giving them basic rights. Hank briefly thought about how long would it take until an android is given a seat on a Federation counsel. Until they asked for their own colony.

Until they decide they had enough of Federation bullshit and decide to leave.

Hank was not unfamiliar to the rumors about what was happening on the edge of the Alpha Quadrant. The tensions with the Klingons were rising again, mere 40 years after everyone thought that the peace was finally cemented. Not to mention the damned lizards snooping and the pointy-eared bastards (the bad ones) lurking around as well. Hank knew he was not the only one who was pessimistic about Federation, hell, anyone who actually genuinely thought that the Federation was flourishing these days could be assumed as mad.

So them trying to diverse attention from whatever was happening near Bajor was vile and ugly, but at the same time, Hank thought in the back of his mind, maybe it was a start of something else. It was just no one had any idea what.

“As you were, Officers,” announced Fowler, throwing Hank back to reality. As people started gathering their pads and getting up from their seats, he added. “All I'm asking is that you show patience and compassion to our new recruits. As of now they are your colleagues and you should treat them with respect you would show to a member of any other species, hostile or not.”

“Respect my ass,” Hank heard someone mutter under their breath, but did not care to look that way.

The mission was sure to get fucking interesting, Hank thought, rubbing his eyes. He got up and made his way to Deck 10, hoping Jimmy had some Aurelian brandy stashed somewhere. He managed to make his way out of the conference room to the turbolift, commanding it to take him to the correct deck on which Jimmy's bar was conventionally placed. However, just as the turbolift's doors opened with a quiet “woosh”, he was met by a sight of one of his senior lieutenants, leaning against the corridor's wall with his arms crossed.

Hank rolled his eyes. The fucking trill was already on his ass and it wasn't even 0800.

“So, Chief,” Gavin started, and Hank just walked past him, continuing on his mission to get to the bar. The trill had the audacity to look offended, but followed after him, continuing speaking. “What's that about the androids being on the ship?”

“Reed, have you once, in all of your fuck-knows-how many lifetimes thought that maybe, just maybe, you should mind your own business?” Hank groaned, not looking at Gavin.

“It sure is my business, if I'm about to work alongside one of them every day,” argued Reed, still continuing after Hank, without taking his glance off him. The trill was considerably shorter than him, and Hank could not believe how fucking obnoxious he could be to keep walking like that just to get on someone's nerves for no reason at all.

“Well, lemme tell you that,” Hank stopped right before the bar's entrance and turned to face Reed, who somehow turned a bit pinkish, the spots on his face contrasting with the shade of his face. “You'll hear everything you need to know during the briefing before we set sail to the unknown once again. Computer, what time is the briefing scheduled for?” Hank asked, after pressing on his badge, without taking his eyes off Gavin.

“The briefing with the new recruits is scheduled for 1600,” the monotonous voice replied from somewhere up above. Gavin squinted.

“So, Lieutenant, I'll see you in,” he glanced at one of the screens, that displayed the deck's map, the current stardate and time on the ship, and looked back at the trill, who still looked extremely annoyed. “I'll see you in roughly 8 hours and 40 minutes. Now leave me the hell alone,” he turned away and made his way to the barcounter, mumbling his hello to Jimmy, who somehow always managed looked fresh. He heard the trill curse under his breath, but was thankful that he didn't think of following him to the bar.

It was definitely way too fucking early for any of this.

***

Hank felt even more exhausted when he woke up. He managed to sneak into his quarters to catch a two hour nap, after spending just some time at Jimmy's. He was awakened by Fowler's stern voice, asking him on a private channel to “get his ass ready”, as the androids were already on board and the senior staff was to present themselves at the meeting room for the second time that day. Hank groaned and made his way to the bathroom to at least try to make himself look presentable. It's not that he really cared that much, but first impressions mattered, yadda-yadda.

He threw some cold water on his face and glanced at his reflection in the mirror. Shit, he fell asleep wearing his uniform. He signed, trying to smooth out the wrinkles on his shirt, but gave up quickly and turned to exit his quarters, without forgetting to pat Sumo and asking him to be a good boy, as usual. One of the best things a Galaxy-class starship could offer was the ability to keep pets on board.

As he made his way through the ship, he'd heard people whispering and wearing puzzled expressions on their faces. Hank shook his head to himself, trying to pay them no mind and continued to the meeting room.

Well, the meeting room was a sight to behold.

All the senior staff was seated and Hank took his usual place beside Ben, but he could not take his eyes off the five androids, who were standing at the foot of the table near the Captain. Five sophisticatedly looking Terrans, three presented as male and two as female, their postures perfect, but their eyes were looking around the room just a bit cautiously. The only significant difference was a small blueish LED that each one of them had on their temples. Four of them were wearing their uniforms assigned to the respected departments and one of them was wearing a pink jumpsuit. Hank noted, that he had to be the new counselor. The silence in the room was almost deafening and Hank was sure he was not the only one who felt like he'd rather have one of the porthole burst and suck them all into outer space.

Captain Fowler, however, seemed absolutely unperturbed by all of that. He glanced around the room one last time, confirming the arrival of all the senior staff members and began.

“As you all may already know from our earlier briefing, these are the androids that were assigned to our ship,” he glanced back to the androids, but all of them kept their gazes travel around the people in front of them. “Now I suggest you introduce yourselves,” he gestured for the androids to continue and took his seat at the head of the table, turning the chair to face the androids.

Hank reminded himself to listen closely to the two in the yellow uniforms, as one of them was gonna end up being under his command. He briefly hoped it was gonna be the blond one, as the other one seemed kinda fragile and skinny looking. Then he almost smacked himself; they were androids, for fuck's sake. The scrawny one could be three times as strong as Hank himself.

The lady in the blue uniform, who was the first in line, stepped forward, cleared her throat, coughing slightly into her fist and started speaking.

Why the fuck did they need to cough, probably was the thought on everyone's mind.

“I am Kamski-type android AX400,” she seemed almost nervous saying that, but then she shook her head slightly and continued with more confidence, “My name is Kara. I studied xenobiology and exochemistry, and I graduated Starfleet Academy with top marks”, by the end of the sentence she seemed nervous again. Nervous androids, that was definitely something to see. Hank noticed Doctor Chen looking at her future subordinate with interest, smiling lightly. “I am very excited to finally put my knowledge and skills into practice”, finished Kara with a small smile and stepped back.

Hank slightly hoped they weren't all gonna say the same textbook greeting.

The next android stepped forward, the blond one in the yellow uniform.

“I'm Simon, Kamski-type android PL600,” he started, smiling broadly and looking around the room. “I am trained in engineering,” Hank poked Ben with his elbow, while the other man just sighed deeply, “I'm specialised in beam technology. And I graduated Starfleet Academy with top marks”. Huh, was there even any android who'd fail, Hank thought amusingly. Simon stepped back and Hank realized that made the scrawny kid his guy.

Once again he had to remind himself that the kid was a fucking android and probably could snap him in half without breaking a sweat.

Could androids even sweat?

Hank shook his head slightly, as the next android took a step forward. It was the other girl, sporting a red uniform. Miller looked at her with both eyebrows raised.

“My name is North,” the lady said sternly. She was the only one of the bunch who looked like she could not care less what the humans thought of her, and Hank thought he wished she'd taken security track instead. They'd find a lot in common. “I am Kamski-type android WR400,” for a split second Hank wondered about the significance of the numbers the androids kept saying. Were these their serial numbers? Their birth names? Or was it more correct to say “their build names”? “I was trained in advanced navigation and stellar cartography,” Miller looked at her with an impressed expression on his face. “I am excited to start my training on this ship,” she finished, without looking the “excited” part and stepped back into the line. Hank noted she did not mention her graduation marks, was she the one lagged behind in one of her classes? He looked at Ben, who was staring at North, recalling his complaints about the android who kept overtaking his son in all of the classes. Was she the one? The damn androids were too confusing, that was for sure.

Now, the scrawny kid stepped up. Hank sat up straighter, aware and prepared to listen.

“My name is Connor, I am Kamski-type android RK800,” he said evenly, his chin lifted slightly as he looked around the room like his peers. Connor's gaze met Hank's and the kid looked like he hesitated for a moment. Hank raised one eyebrow at him and he quickly looked away. Hank smirked a little. Another shy one or definitely tougher than he looks? “I was trained in all advanced level of combat, as well as xenoethnics and advanced tactics. I graduated Starfleet Academy with top marks and I aspire to become a high ranking security officer,”. Hank half-grimy and half-amusedly thought that if the kid had any idea what he had just signed up for. Connor looked around the room one last time and stepped back into the line.

The last one in the line moved forward. Hank glanced at the Captain for a second and then back at the kid. He had just noticed that the android's eyes were different colors: light green and bright blue. Where did that come from?  
“I am Markus, Kamski-type android RK200,” damn, the guy had a smooth voice. He was definitely suited to be a counselor, Hank thought. Markus' whole demeanor oozed a sense of calm and he seemed pretty relaxed, if only just a bit cautious. If it wasn't for the eyes and the LED, Hank would had thought that the kid was a Betazoid or an El-Auerian. “I was trained in advanced xenopsychology and xenoethincs, as well as other numerous disciplines that regulate interspecies relations and multicultural protocols,” he glanced quickly at the Captain, who was watching the android carefully. “Being a counselor on this ship is a huge honor for me.” he finished, lifting his gaze at the people and smiling.

Hank chuckled grimly at the “honor” part which spared him a stern look from Fowler.

Markus took a step back to the other androids. Fowler stood up from his chair and clapped slowly.  
“We welcome you all to our starship,” he said, pulling out a smile that he saved only for special occasions. Fuck, Jeffrey was a charmer. “As I have already introduced myself, allow my respective staff to say their greetings. That way you will also meet your superiors.” Captain gestured at the table and looked pointedly at Miller, propping him to begin.

One by one, all the senior members introduced themselves, saying their names and ranks, some even thought about even adding their species to the list, which, in Hank's opinion was pointless, as only their helmsman Thamao was an Andorian, and she herself had not mentioned her species, and the rest were more or less Terran. More or less. Androids carefully followed each speaking person with their eyes. Until it was Hank's turn to speak and suddenly he was met with five curious, each in their own way, gazes and for a short moment he felt terse and lost for words.

“The name's Hank Anderson,” he started. The androids kept looking at him without blinking and he almost thought to look away but instead he rubbed a side of his face with his hand and continued shortly, “I'ma Security Chief and Tactical Officer. The rank's Lieutenant Commander, but it's just a formality at this point,” he shrugged, regarding the androids with a thin smile. Kara and Simon nodded almost simultaneously, and all of them turned their gazes to Ben, expecting him to speak up next. Except for Connor, whose stare, once again, lingered on Hank's just for a while longer. Which was quite reasonable, as Hank was Connor's senior officer now and he probably wanted to examine his superior thoroughly. Hank almost wanted to try to get on the kid's nerves and wink at him or something, but quickly reserved that thought for later. Connor moved his eyes to Ben as the latter started introducing himself.

After the introductions had wrapped up, Fowler spoke up again.

“Now, with all that said and done, I suggest you all get back to your duties until your respective compartment briefings. We are set to leave Earth's orbit and make our way to aid a Betazoid colony on Coltar V tomorrow at 0900. Ensigns,” he turned to the androids, as they carefully followed his each word, not paying attention to the people getting up from their seats. “you will be shown to your quarters by your fellow Ensign Drock, who will meet you at Deck 12. As you were. Number One, come with,” he gestured for Chris to follow him and made his way to a smaller door in the back of the room that lead to the Captain's office, Miller trailing after him shortly.

Hank did not hurry to get up from his seat, as he did not have any immediate duties to be performed, so he just followed the departing androids with his eyes, and only after the doors had wooshed behind Kara, who was the last to leave the room, he got up and walked over to the porthole. The window was facing Earth, the view just barely moving as the station to which the ship was docked slowly orbited the planet. The sight was beautiful in many aspects, however Hank felt a pang of yearning every time he looked at Earth from up above. And it was not because he had missed his fraternal homeworld, it was quite the opposite — he was never connected to it in any way, despite being born and raised there.

He'd sneak up to nearby colonies the moment he got his hands on a shuttle that he could pilot on his own when he was 17, hoping someday he would jump on one and never look back at Earth again. As he grew older, the sentiment dimmed a little and with time he just started feeling deficient, that was the word. Hank would see so many proud peoples, who were honored to be a member of their species, who would speak greatly of their homeworld and voice their yearnings for the loved ones left back home. Hank never missed Earth. He did miss the food though, he could admit that as much, but spend some 30 years cruising on starships and you would miss anything that did not come from a replicator.

He stood like that for quite some time, gazing past his reflection on thick glass. Damn, he did resent this place and could not wait to get back out there. And with the changes that the ship endured the mission ought to become something else entirely.

Hank only noticed Miller when his reflection appeared on the glass beside his own.

“She's beautiful, isn't she?” the First Officer murmured, smiling softly. Hank sighed, slowly nodding his head. He tried to confide in him once more, “I'm gonna miss her again. Too bad we don't get to stay here longer, huh?”  
Hank made a “hmph” sound and shrugged. Chris regarded him with a questioning look and Hank spoke up.  
“Well, ya know me, Chris. Young and always thirsty for new adventures, can never settle down”, he joked half-heartedly, but that still got a chuckle out of Miller, who then patted him on the shoulder and went on his way out of the meeting room.

“Computer, tell me the time” said Hank a few moments later, pressing on his badge, not bothering to turn around to look at the screen on the wall behind him.

“The ship's time is 1053,” replied the monotonous voice.

This day was never gonna end, Hank thought sullenly, keeping his eyes on the view that spread out outside the porthole.

***

Hank watched the commotion of ensigns on the bridge, slightly leaning on the tactical panel, while awaiting responses from one of his own ensigns, who he had put in charge of checking the availability of phasers and phaser charges way down in the armory, and had them work with the engineers to install the necessary updates to the ship's shields, which were in a dire need of attention after Detroit took a slight beating from a Romulan freighter that tried to creep into Federation space three weeks ago.

“Ensign Novikova, is everything alright?” Hank talked to his combadge trying to sound indifferently, only half meaning his own tone. The girl promised to get back at him after checking the phaser banks in two minutes exactly eight minutes and thirty seconds ago. It was not that he had nothing better to do, but in fact he didn't and he kept glancing at the clock every now and then, entertaining the thoughts of the upcoming personnel briefing.

“Yes, Lieutenant Anderson, sir,” came through the badge in a few moments. The girl's voice, for one, did not sound alright. She breathed heavily and sounded more groggily than she had just a dozen minutes ago. Hank squinted a little, trying to find a not-so insensitive way to voice his suggestion over a fucking combadge.

“Ensign... Have you been crying?” A+ for bedside manner, Hank. He felt a strong urge to slap himself.

“No, sir... I mean, yes,” the ensign kept breathing heavily, her voice shaking slightly however she wasn't sobbing. “I've had an allergic reaction.”

“An allergic reaction?” to what? To checking for empty phaser banks? On the other hand, Hank thought, 20-year-old him absolutely loathed it, so he could relate.

“Yes, sir. There was... We found a kitten... In the armory”, she definitely tried her best to even her breaths as she poured her reports down.

“A kitten.” Hank deadpanned.

“Yessir.”

“In the armory. What the fuck was a kitten doing in the armory?” Hank asked a bit louder in slight disbelief, which made a couple of ensigns on the bridge turn their heads to him. He motioned them to get back to their jobs.

“We don't know, sir. We think it must've escaped from the nursery by a Jefferie's Tube.”

Hank sighed.

“How come we can have someone crawl from the nursery to the armory by a fuckin' Jefferie's Tube. That has to be checked out.” Novikova barely had the time to utter yet another „yessir“, when Hank spoke again. “No, have Ensign Correira check that out. Don't crawl into that Tube, who knows what else might be there... And take that kitten somewh— No, have Correira take it as well. And report to Sickbay.”

“Yes, Lieutenant. Novikova out.” and the combadge line went dead.

Some ships had omnipotent entities torment their captains, some ships were out there discovering civilizations progressed beyond the possibilities of any humanoid species. And Detroit had fucking kittens grovel around the ship. Hank could only imagine the look on Fowler's face when he should read the report.

His combage signaled with three short beeps after a brief moment and Hank knew it was the alarm that he had set up to alert him 30 minutes before the briefing was supposed to start. He commed the ensigns that were working with the engineering team to keep to their duties and wait for further orders until after the meeting was over and made his way to the turbolift to get to the security staff HQ.

Hank still had no idea what he was going to say. What did he even need to do? Introduce Connor, let him say his rehearsed lines and then let everyone get back to their business? Was there gonna be some fucking impromptu Q&A? Yeah, that's one of the androids that Starfleet has assigned to us. No, nobody owns him. Yeah, you will have to work with him. Yeah, he will probably outrank you all in less than two years. No, shut your fucking mouth Reed. He hated all this awkward talk, however Hank doubted all of that was gonna blow over faster than he hoped. Man the fuck up and do your job.

He briefly thought about maybe spending the night at the station, so he could get some whiskey without any trace of synthehol in it.

A bunch of Lieutenants and Connor himself were already present at the headquarters, while the briefing wasn't due until ten or so minutes. Just like at the senior staff meeting, the android was stood to the side, exploring the surroundings with his eyes, while all the other people were huddled together whispering to each other softly, throwing wary looks at Connor from time to time.

Another minute of this and Hank thought he was gonna lose his goddamn mind.

Just as he had entered the room, the Lieutenants went silent and turned his heads towards him. Connor did not. Hank did a quick headcount in his mind and clicked the com.

“Lieutenants Ekwensi and Reed, report to the security HQ,” he said sharply, receiving almost simultaneous “aye, sirs” in response. Then he made a beeline for the android, hoping to quickly find some middle ground before throwing him into the action, figuratively speaking. He really it would never come to the point, where he would literally had to throw the kid at something.

First, he really had to stop to referring to the android as „kid“, as he looked old enough to not be suited for any kinds of endearments. Second, Hank also had to keep reminding himself that he was most likely a lot tougher than he looked, but god dammit, why would they make him seem so small. Hell, comparatively, most humanoids bar trueblood Klingons, Cardassians and some Vulcans (who were just tall fuckin' assholes) looked smaller next to Hank, but damn.

The doors wooshed and Lieutenants Ekwansi and Reed appeared in the doorway, chatting quietly.

Well, Connor was taller than Reed, but the fucker was just stocky.

When Hank found himself almost face to face to the android, the latter finally looked at Hank, full turning his body to him, his hands behind his back, posture perfect. Hank was aware, that all the eyes in the room was suddenly on them two. He didn't expect Connor to speak first, but he went right for it.

“Lieutenant Commander Anderson, it's nice to meet you,” he started, extending his right hand, his face friendly and eyes warm. If there was any trace of hostility or prejudice towards the android left in Hank at this point, it would at least have disappeared for now. Now, trust, that was another thing.

“Likewise,” Hank shook his hand, trying to reciprocate the friendly expression on his face, but he was sure he was failing miserably, as he was never good at that. Connor's hand was warm, the skin, whatever it was made of, was very realistic. If Hank had no idea, he would not be able to tell it apart from a Terran's. “You can shorten that to just „Lieutenant“. Everyone else does,” he kept his tone light, taking the hand away. Connor nodded, pursing his lips slightly and let out a short breath. Suddenly Hank got extremely curious: did they really need to breathe? Was there any significance to the facial expressions and the little things that they did? Any android could just march in there and and put everyone in line with the most emotionless faces and expressions ever and people would probably have an easier time accepting that. Vulcans, the logical cunts, do that. And some Terrans still have a problem with that.

Hank turned to face the yellow shirts at the table and felt a tad uneasy, still not quite sure what he was about to say. He went to the foot of the table, motioning with his arm for Connor to follow him. Aight, here goes nothing.

“So, as you all heard already,” he started evenly, clearing his throat, “this is Connor. He's one of the androids assigned to „Detroit“ and he is the one who's stuck with us at security.”

The lieutenants kept looking back and forth from Hank to Connor and for the second time that day Hank felt lost for words. He never had to do anything like that, what the fuck was he supposed to do? Sing a song? Do a little dance?

“There's really not much else to say. Any questions?”

Reed raised his hand. Of fucking course.

Hank rubbed his face. “Go on, Reed.”

“Why the hell does Starfleet think we can trust these things? We can't even trust most humanoids these days! How are they so sure they're not Dominion agents sent to spy on the Federation all these years ago?” the trill's voice was raising slightly with each word. “And with the fucking Borg crisis? Trusting the tin-cans sure don't seem like a good idea to me.”

Hank breathed in deeply, preparing himself to wiggle out of this situation as peacefully as possible, the outcome of which equaled almost zero, when he felt Connor move and suddenly the android was stood right beside him.

“I can assure you, Lieutenant,” he started evenly, with the same calm and friendly expression he was wearing earlier, “that we are neither Dominion spies or associated with the Borg in any way. Our...,” he hesitated for a bit, Hank noticed his LED blinked yellow for a moment, before returning to its usual blue. Well, that was new. “Our creator is a former Starfleet cyberneticist and we were created as means to aid the Federation in many ways.”

“Well, then that makes you Starfleet property, but you pricks somehow realized yourselves as a whole another species!” Hank could not believe how obnoxiously predictable Reed was. He looked at Connor again, whose LED was still blue, but blinking rapidly, his face not so friendly and warm anymore.

“You all may remember the situation that brought attention to android rights,” he started slowly, Hank felt like now Connor was addressing the whole room, including Hank himself. “Eight Terran years ago, an android was to be disassembled by a Starfleet cybernetecist, who was technically his fellow officer as well. As he refused to submit to such procedure, the hearing was commenced, arguing whether or not an android is sentient enough to make their own decisions.” Hank noted the choice of a pronoun used by Connor. “The decision was ruled out in the android's favor. So, Lieutenant,” he looked back to Reed. “None of us are Starfleet property,” he lifted his hand to straighten out the badge on his chest, even if it wasn't askew. It was almost like he was fidgeting, like he didn't know what to do with his hands. “We are sentient enough to make our own decisions,” he didn't take his eyes off Reed, who still was fuming and panting slightly, his entire frame heaving with each breath.

“And sentient enough to form our own opinions.” Connor smiled with a corner of his mouth and turned back to Hank. He heard someone in the room chuckle, to which Reed mumbled “shut up”. What's this now? Sassy android comebacks? Hank really didn't want to deal with any of this.

“Alright,” he looked back into the room, sitting down in the chair at the head of the table “if that's all, ya all are free to go back to your respective duties. Reed, check on Ensign Novikova, she was supposed to report to sickbay. And someone,” he rubbed his eyes with his hand, still feeling exhausted as hell. “Someone who isn't allergic to cats, go to the fuckin' armory. Dismissed.”

Everyone got up from their seats, pouring out of the doors. Hank blinked a few times, remembering that Connor was still stood beside him, probably awaiting his own instructions. Hank lifted his gaze at him and found that the android was looking at him pointedly.

“Right, you,” Hank sighed, propping his head on one arm, leaning on the table but not taking his eyes away from Connor. “I know you were trained in whatever,” Connor almost opened his mouth to talk, but Hank lifted his hand to silence him, “but we are short on people dealing with the shields. You took any engineering courses back in the Academy?”

Connor blinked. “I took Basic Engineering and Basic Warp Design.”

“That's good enough. Go down to engineering, I think Ben has Lieutenant Sennek working down there. He's a Vulcan, you guys must have a lot in common,” Hank chuckled to himself, shaking his head.

“How come?” Connor asked, still looking pointedly at him and tilting his head slightly. Hank didn't feel like continuing with the joke anymore. He put his face in his hands.

“Dismissed, Ensign.”

“Yes, sir.” said the android without missing a beat and made his way for the door.

“Hey, uh, Connor,” Hank suddenly felt the urge to say whatever he was about to say, lifting his face from his hands. The android stopped right before the motion sensor in the doors would have reacted to someone's presence and turned his head slightly. “Don't pay attention to the shit Reed says. He's got a bad case of both the trill and the symbiont being huge fuckin' assholes. He grows on you,” like a fucking rash, but Hank kept that one to himself.

Connor nodded shortly and left the room.

Hank thought that everything about this goddamn planet was cursed. He couldn't wait to get the hell out of there once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i made gavin a trill just for the sake of the jokes 'cause i'm trash! the trill are a species from the planet trill, that live in symbiosis with a symbiont. symbionts live for centuries and go through many hosts and the trill have to earn the right to join with the symbiont. they merge memories and personalities. just a small note for y’all who isn’t balls deep in space adventure  
> pls don't hesitate to tell me about any spelling/grammatical errors you see!!


	2. with your feet in the air and your head on the ground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is extremely cryptic and i apologize for that. but here we Go

Detroit was going steady on Warp 6 and Hank was feeling a bit more content ever since they had left the Solar system. He was stood on the bridge, in his usual spot in front of the tactical panel, mindlessly gazing into the smearing black void that was showing on the view screen, quietly surveying the bridge with a corner of his eye.

It was calm and quiet: everyone was stationed at their places, not paying a slight bit of attention to the two newcomers that were present at the bridge now.

Markus was sat in the counselor's chair by Fowler's left and North was sat at the navigational panel on the right, where she took over Lieutenant Pires, who'd fallen sick, so Fowler decided to give her a taste of being on the bridge for a while.

Frankly, Hank expected everything to be a lot more awkward than it was. And the bridge was not awkward at all. From where he was standing, Hank could hear the Captain chatting quietly to Markus from time to time and Miller did laps around the bridge, sometimes walking over to where North was sat and Hank saw him nodding at her, saying something to her that was way out of Hank's earshot.

However, every time he saw Markus move, Hank was reminded about the fact that he had been seeing counselor T'Lar twice a week without missing a single session ever since the mission started two years ago. And now Markus was the new counselor.

Which meant he had to see him now.

Hank bitterly thought about how many people probably have canceled their counselor meetings just because the new one was a damn android. He mused, that in some way he was also a small part of that, as he was himself reluctant to resume his therapy sessions. He kept telling himself that it wasn't because Markus was an android. He kept telling himself that trust, trust was the issue here. Spilling your guts out to yet another person was difficult enough, as well as he hated having to confide in another person. Fowler had to basically drag him to T'Lar by the hand the minute Hank stepped on the ship when the mission started, and at some point he had admitted that without that, he would not turn to therapy by himself. It was not a good thought.

Because therapy fucking helped. Maybe it wasn't precisely healing him in the most accurate definition of the word, but it was surely helping.

However, two weeks without the sessions and he'd started having a sinking feeling that soon he would start losing grip on that.

Hank sighed audibly, quickly looking around to see if anyone noticed.

Markus' head was slightly turned in his direction, looking intently. Hank met his gaze and looked back at his panel, wanting to continue with his musings.

“Captain, we are entering Coltar space, setting course to Coltar V on Warp 3, ETA 10 minutes,” North said clearly, without missing a beat, which Hank had rarely seen a newcomer officer do.

Hank started to put in the sequence on his panel, predicting the next order, as it was a routine procedure.

“Acknowledged. The Governor will be hailing us any minute now. Hank, lower the shields,” Fowler said, without turning his head back.

“Already on it.”

Hank tried to put his thoughts back to the objective at hand. During the aiding procedures the Security department had the easiest tasks: get the people down on the planet, walk around, look for any trouble, keep order. Sounds pretty fuckin' easy.

Except Hank felt extremely uneasy. He was pretty unsettled by the fact that he would make some of the Betazoids uncomfortable with the state of his mind. He'd consider putting a „DO NOT OPEN“ sign on his head, but quickly dismissed that as borderline stupid. He knew that the Betazoids had strict rules about turning on their telepathic abilities on the outsiders; Hank just hoped that his internal chaos would not invade anyone of them on its own accord.

This time his musings were interrupted by the hailing sound.

“Captain, it's the Governor,” said the comm officer on Hank's right.

“Put her up,” Fowler motioned to the screen, standing up.

The Governor appeared on the screen in a few moments, smiling politely, a couple of her officers standing on her sides.

“Hello, Governor Usaa. It has been quite a while,” Hank could not see the Captain's face but he was sure he was flashing one of his most charming smiles at the woman.

“Oh, Captain,” she sighed dramatically, still smiling, “you know you can call me Rwonnale. How I am glad that it was your ship who had answered out request.”

“I would hate it to be anyone but us,” Hank tried really hard not to roll his eyes at the entire exchange and he had a strong feeling that he was not the only one.

“You humor me,” she said, not dropping the flirty attitude. “I'll have my men send you the coordinates to beam your people down. I'm expecting yourself to beam down as well, Captain.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And with your new...”, she made a small pause, turning her gaze to North and then to Markus, “additions to the crew, I'm sure you will be done in no time. I will see you soon, Jeffrey,” she looked at Fowler once again and the transmission ended, and the screen was black once again.

“As charming as usual,” Miller scoffed.

“A job's a job, Number One,” Fowler turned to Markus. “You ready to go out there?”

“Yes, sir. I'd be glad to help out.”

“Don't get too eager, now. Number One, you're in charge,” Miller nodded shortly and took the Captain's chair. Fowler clicked the badge on his chest, “Doctor Chen, Chief Collins, prepare away teams. Hank,” he turned to him, “you too.”

“On it,” Hank made his way for the turbolift, thinking about who he was gonna put on the team, trying to shove his unsettled feelings as far as he possibly could. Because pushing things away always worked out in his favor, sure thing.

***

“Reed, Ekwensi, MacAuslan, Correira, Wayud, Connor, Dubois, Pierce,” Hank named the yellow shirts in the order they were stood in the line in front of him. He decided on putting more ensigns on the team, as the mission was fairly easy and they needed to gain the experience beyond monitoring the ship corridors.

“Reed and MacAuslan, take Dubois, you'll be patrolling the main street of the settlement. Don't forget to ask the locals if they need any help, that's what we're here to do,” the named officers nodded in unison. “Ekwensi, Wayud, Pierce and Connor, you four are to help unload the cargo, then you are to patrol the other streets. Just patrolling, you can do that in pairs or on your own, but don't wander too much. Correira, you and I will be going to the local authorities, see if they need any help there. You all to stay on the line if any further orders come through. Everything clear?”

Hank received a bunch of “aye, sir”'s in return.

“Great. Let's get a move on.”

All of the officers turned at once, making their way to the transporter room. Security officers always beamed down before other personnel in case of any emergency, so, naturally, they were the first ones to go.

Hank followed the group shortly, bringing up the rear with only Connor treading in front of him, the rest of the group slightly ahead.

Every time Hank saw Connor he always felt like had to encourage him in some way and while he realized that there was a slim chance that the android even needed that, the urge tugged at him, making his hands itch. Hank definitely thought it was weird, because Connor's face was indifferent most of the time, albeit it didn't lack in emotive response when he was talking to someone. Not that Hank looked at him a lot, but it was his job as a superior officer to oversee how well the new recruit, who was also a comparatively unique one, blended in with the team that had worked together for more than two years already.

Hank took a few wider steps and caught up to Connor.

“You alright?” out of everything he could've possibly said, he chose this. Fucking A.

Connor turned his head to him, keeping up the pace.

“Why would I not be, Lieutenant?”

“I dunno,” Hank shrugged. “Feeling jittery about your first away mission?”

Connor blinked, his face neutral as usual and Hank felt a mixed twitch of regret and awkwardness about even starting this conversation.

“I am alright, Lieutenant. Although I've never been to another planet apart from Earth,” that surprised Hank a little, but he gave no sign of that, “and while having met Betazoids in the Academy, perceiving how a colony functions on its own is... rather exciting,” he concluded, turning his head back, slightly bowed.

It sure would have been fucking great to know what to say to that, Hank thought aimlessly.

“Good. Good, exciting is good,” he gave Connor a small pat on the shoulder and if he noticed any change in his expression with a corner of his eye, he put it aside firmly, not dwelling on anything.

***

After beaming down to the planet, they split into groups and went onto their respective duties.

Hank had to dismiss Ensign Correira rather soon, as the latter was taken away by an elderly lady, who insisted, that “the charming young man helped her out immediately”, so Hank could do nothing but shrug, as the lady literally dragged him by the hand.

The authorities did not require much help, which was kind of obvious from the start - the Betazoid were fairly peaceful peoples. So Hank wasn’t surprised at the lack of crime, especially on a small colony like this one. He’d thought to check out how the process of unloading of the cargo that must have been beamed down by that time was going.

As he turned on the street that would lead him straight to the beam-down point, he heard someone shriek from one of the houses and sprinted there immediately, taking out his phaser on the go. The door to the house was ajar, so Hank didn't hesitate to bust through, quickly accessing what was happening in the house.

Whatever scenario he could possibly imagined there, it wasn't that.

First he saw Markus, the LED on his temple blaring yellow, who was shielded by a Betazoid man, both of their faces alarmed and confused. The man was keeping the android away with his arm stretched out, but both of them were looking at an old Betazoid woman, who was sat on the bed in the corner of the small room. Her eyes were almost completely white, some parts of her naturally-black irises were just barely seen through the mist but she was still as though looking right at Markus. She was blind, Hank realized dimly, and put his phaser down, trying to quickly come up with something that might had happened there.

He had nothing.

“Markus, what's going on?” he asked the android, whose LED kept a steady yellow. Hank tried to keep his tone careful, as he did not want to disturb the woman, who, as Hank understood, was the one who had screamed earlier.

“Who is he? His mind is...” the woman started speaking just as Markus opened his mouth, her voice trembling faintly. She outstretched her arm, almost like she was trying to reach for him. “It is... overwhelming. Icin, who is he?”

The man, who was standing in front of Markus, did not reply, and Hank almost thought that she might be addressing someone else who was not in the room, but he kept his eyes on the woman.

“An android? Most peculiar,” she muttered.

Icin turned his eyes to Hank, dropping his arm and standing aside to Markus.

“My mother's telepathy is not what it used to be. It is... spontaneous. This was a bad idea. I apologize, but you two should go-”

“No, Icin. Let the... let the android come to me,” the woman interrupted him, raising her arm halfway. Markus was still not saying a word, but his LED returned to the usual blue.

“May I?” he asked the man quietly, and the latter nodded shortly. Markus slowly made his way towards the woman, meeting the outstretched hand with his own.

“Can you fill me in? I'm a bit at loss here,” Hank asked the man quietly.

The man sighed and started speaking carefully.

“My mother is dying. And her telepathy is... frantic. Unstable. And it's getting worse. It is difficult for Betazoid counselors to handle her. I thought asking for yours, were they not Betazoid, even for a short period would do her good.”

“But what happened? Why'd she scream like that?”

“It happened the second he walked in. It's like he shocked her,” the man sighed, looking over at his mother worryingly. The woman was holding Markus' hand still, her face peaceful now.

“His mind... overwhelming, but curious. Peculiar. Chaotic but harmonized. Synthetic... but thriving,” she made a pause, putting her head up, as if trying to look in Markus' face. “Alive. My telepathy trembled at his presence, do you not feel that?” she turned her head to her son, clearly addressing him. Markus looked puzzled, but he didn't take his eyes off the woman once.

Hank felt out of place. He felt like he was interrupting something and an urge to get the hell out of there spread in his gut.

“I apologize if I imposed... I did not mean you any harm,” Markus started, taking the woman's hand in both of his. She turned back to him, smiling softly.

“You did not impose, child,” she said sweetly, then closing her eyes, but Markus' face was focused as if he was listening.

She was talking to him through her telepathy, Hank realized.

“Ma'am, I thought I was supposed to be the one counseling you,” the android chuckled lightly. The woman shook her head, her eyes still closed.

“Thank you,” Markus said again after a few short moments.

At that point Hank really felt like his was interrupting something very intimate and personal, but for some reason he felt glued to the spot, unable to move.

The woman opened her eyes and Markus let go of her hand.

Hank cleared his throat, hoping that Markus would get the hint, because apart from being extremely uncomfortable, he struggled to even think how he was supposed to put any of this on the report. Markus turned his head to him, his face still.

“One moment, Lieutenant,” he looked back at the woman.

Maybe they were still having a conversation in their heads. Hank caught a small glimpse of the son, still looking intently at his mother. Was he also a part of this exchange? That was a new way of third wheeling, Hank mused.

“It has been a while since I saw my mother look so calm,” Icin moved closer to Hank, still looking at his mother. “The illness took the best of her.”

Hank felt his chest tighten.

“Don't have to tell me that,” he murmured quietly, hoping that it was as good of a consolation as any. The room suddenly felt stuffy.

“We can go now, Lieutenant,” Markus turned to him. He shook Icin's hand and made way for the door.

“Goodbye, Ma'am,” Hank said, which turned out to be kind of awkward, then shook Icin's hand, smiling absently and followed Markus out of the house.

“Now, what was that all about?” he dropped the second they were outside.

“I think... I think her telepathy latched onto my mind for some reason. I had no idea this could be possible,” Markus started, looking up at the sky for some reason, but Hank kept his gaze on him. “It scared her, for a moment, but then it was as though... reading my thoughts calmed her down.”

“So, she found peace among your ones and zeroes?”

Markus chuckled.

“You can say so. I'm as surprised as you are, Lieutenant. I never thought that...,” he paused, looking for the right words, which puzzled Hank a bit. “I never thought that an artificial mind could work with telepathy like a non-artificial would”, he concluded, looking back at Hank. He snorted and started walking.

“Turns out maybe you're not as different from humanoids as you yourself think.”

Markus followed him shortly.

“May be, Lieutenant.”

Hank briefly thought of bringing up the renewal of his therapy sessions, as this was a good moment, but held back. He would do that later. He definitely would.

They walked for a few moments in silence before Hank popped a nagging question.

“What made you choose to go into counseling, anyway? I mean, I could get why you folk with your,” he gestured around his own head, “positronic noggin would go for engineering or science, but why counseling?”

“I don't think I can give you a precise answer, Lieutenant,” Markus looked up again, then looked back at Hank. “I can ask you the same thing: what made you take security track?”

This question always kind of took him aback because: a) no one really ever wondered why a big tough guy with a no-fucks-given attitude has taken security; b) just like Markus, he really couldn't say what exactly made him do that. There was only one time when he really went into detail on that and the circumstance of that conversation was stored way back in his mind.

“Uh. I always wanted to get out there and,” he started vaguely and shrugged, “but I guess that's a reason why I joined Starfleet in the first place. I guess that's what people always assumed I would do, so I just went along with that. You can't tell me it was the same for you.”

“That's where you're wrong, Lieutenant,” Hank would lie if he said that didn't surprise him. “An advice I was once given also influenced my choice of taking up counseling.”

“Really thought you were gonna start some speech about your ever ending humanitarian mission as an artificial being willing to help whoever or some shit like that.”

“Oh, that is true as well, don't get me wrong,” Markus smiled, putting his hands behind his back. “A humanoid brain is a very complex thing and helping someone unravel their thoughts is ever gratifying. However,” he took his eyes off Hank and fixed his gaze on the road ahead, “do you want to know an interesting thing, Lieutenant?”

“Shoot.”

“I haven't been in practice for a long time,” he looked hesitant for a moment, “but most people do come to the right conclusion without me doing much. Some just need... a guiding hand, I suppose,” he looked back at Hank with a small smile on his face. The peaceful face of the old Betazoid woman popped into Hank's mind and he looked away.

“They're probably scared you're gonna start shooting lasers from your eyes,” he joked good-naturedly. Markus chuckled politely and they spent the rest of the way to the beam-down point in relatively comfortable silence.

  
***

They spent another 10-something hours on Coltar V, doing odd jobs here and there, and after wrapping things up they were expected to attend a small reception arranged by the citizens of the settling. Reception was far too of a fancy word to call that what it actually was - just a humble feast, with a dozen or so tables put up. The most important part was, of course, the food. No officer could say no to an organic meal that was actually cooked by actual living beings, so most of the away team was sat down, eating away, relaxing and lively talking to the locals.

Hank loathed the fact that he had no appetite despite always being the first one to moan about the replicated food. He was pushing around the food on his plate with a fork, only partially paying attention to the conversations around him, the thoughts in his head heavy, for a reason he could not really pinpoint. However, his attention sparked, when he heard a Betazoid man, that was sitting beside him and talking to some engineer, whose name Hank could not remember.

“...to my mother-in-law, who is very sick, and our doctors have trouble treating her, because her telepathic abilities are so erratic. But my husband tells me it has been a while since he saw her look so restful,” a tiny smile spread on his face.

“Your husband's name is Icin, right?” Hank interjected, hoping they didn't notice him skipping the apology for listening in.

“Yes, it is,” the man seemed mildly surprised, when he turned to Hank, his expression silently prompting him to continue speaking.

“Uh, I've met him. Kinda. Earlier today. And your mother-in-law too,” he scrapped for words, but his brain rejected to cooperate. “I'm sorry, you were saying?”

The man blinked, putting two and two together in his head.

“You're the officer who was with the android that visited my mother-in-law, aren't you?” Hank nodded. “Icin indeed mentioned you. Lieutenant Ainsley and I,” right, that's what her name was, “were just talking about those extraordinary people right there,” he looked somewhere ahead. Hank followed his gaze and it landed on Kara, Markus and Connor, who were not sitting at any of the tables, as they didn't consume food. Kara was animatedly explaining something to a group of kids that gathered around her, captivated in what she was telling them. Markus was crouched down, as another kid was tapping cautiously on his LED and Connor was stood to the side, his hands behind his back, eyes wandering around the place.

“Chief here has one under his command too,” Ainsley piped in.

“Yeah, I do,” Hank did not tear his gaze off the androids.

“They are really quite fascinating, aren't they?” Hank watched one of the kids from Kara's group walk up to Connor. “A lot of people in the Federation are very skeptical about this affair,” the kid said something to Connor, pointing at the phaser strapped to his waist. “But trust me,” the man made a slight pause. Connor looked down at the kid, unstrapping the phaser and started explaining something to the child, pointing at something on the weapon, but holding it at a safe distance from him. “If just one of them made two people I love dearly happy, then I say let them rule the Federation for all I care.” Hank turned back to look at him and saw him smiling to himself, his head slightly bowed.

“Cheers to that,” Ainsley laughed softly and raised her own drink.

Hank turned his head back and was surprised to meet Markus' eyes, who was now stood up and looking back at him. He raised his drink to him and Markus smiled, breaking the eye contact and shaking his head lightly.

It still did not make a lick of sense why his mind was in such disarray.

An hour and something later there were back on the ship. As they were scheduled to take off from the orbit next morning, Hank retired to his quarters, his head heavy. This time could not get the image of Markus holding the hand of the old Betazoid woman out of his head. He'd realize that entire situation left him feeling... not distressed, that was the wrong word. Maybe disturbed if anything, but not in a bad way. He could not help feeling curious about the androids, and what he witnessed back on Coltar V just made him ask more questions that were probably going to be left unanswered. He wondered if the situation had the same effect on Markus or any effect at all.

What he had seen today didn't scare him, no, not in the slightest. But the feeling was overwhelming and he hated just how much impact this had. He had indeed been bottling some stuff up in his head, chucking it back there to deal with that later as he usually did and it bit him in the ass. Again. For the hundredth fucking time.

He wanted to curse whatever it was that pinned him with Markus today, as a reminder of what he had to do.

Fucking hell, all of this was making his head spin. He really wanted nothing but to go to Jimmy's and ask him for something from his secret stash. Knowing fucking Jimmy, he'd still mix syntehol instead of real booze in his drink, which would leave Hank feeling skammed but still slightly drunk because his stupid humanoid brain was not immune to a placebo effect.

Of course he knew what he had to do. He had to go to Markus' quarters, set up a damn appointment and go be miserable on his own. Being miserable on his own, that he could do alright. Doing something to fix that felt like a huge burden, but a right thing to do nonetheless.

Damn this.

Hank finally made his way back to his quarters and sat at the terminal. He wanted to hit his head on the desk, why was this taking him so long. Probably the fact that he was doing that on his own will, he thought self-deprecatingly. He cursed out loud and finally started composing a message to Markus, asking for free time slots for therapy sessions. After sending the message, he roughly got up from the desk, almost knocking the chair down. It was done, he did it, all by himself, without anyone nagging over him to sort his shit out.

Sumo tapped his calf with his paw, demanding attention.

“I'm a fuckin' mess, boy,” Hank crouched down and rubbed the dog's head. Sumo pressed his head into his palm, sneezing quietly, his tail wiggling rapidly.

Hank stood up and went to the bathroom and looked in the huge mirror above the sink. In the reflection he saw the same sad old man, with the same gray hair, bundled up in a messy knot, the same scar on a cheek that prevented a part of his beard from growing, the same brownish pigment spot on his neck, that peeked out of the collar of his uniform a bit.

Still the same tired stare.

That's what always happened when he was left alone, the grime would start pouring out of every fiber of his being, trying to bring him down.

He heard the terminal ping, notifying him of an incoming message. Thinking that it might be Markus already, he felt a slight pang of guilt that he could not explain. For fuck's sake, why did it have to be like this. He left the bathroom, trudging to the terminal, already pondering on what he could reply, but when he had seen what the message was it made him snort and shake his head.

It was an away mission report from Connor. Hank told his personnel they should have their reports ready by 1900 tomorrow.

He glanced at the clock and the current time on the ship was 2145.

When he finally laid down and closed his eyes to get some sleep, the peaceful face of the old Betazoid woman popped in his mind again.

***

Next morning Hank checked his terminal first thing and there it was. There it was. He could not deny that he had felt a slight touch of relief when he saw the addressee's name.

Markus simply sent him his schedule, the typed out words moderate and professional.

Hank groggily thought if they sent that shit right out of their heads. He quickly picked a weekly spot that didn't conflict with his own schedule too much and sent the message back.

“Square one, back to square fuckin' one,” he mumbled to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my gf read that and told me "it seems like you're gonna pair hank and markus" djsjd i SWEAR i just really like uhh exploring characters through the eyes of the other. felt like because markus is hank's counselor it IS important for him to get know him better. hope you liked this one! chapter 3 is on the way and we're gonna trek more stars than ever before  
> pls don't hesitate me about any mistakes you see and tell me what you think!!!  
> come talk 2 me on [twitter dot com](https://twitter.com/sputniksickle) where i scream and whine abt dbh and writing  
> also i am very much looking for a beta so if any of you is willing to do that it would be very VERY much appreciated


	3. i know sometimes i must get out in the light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! i'm sorry for... the absence, life's been NOT kind but i think about this little thing every single day. so.. here we are. i hope it's not too rushed and that you will like it!! thank u if you haven't given up on this

A week later they were on their way to rendezvous with USS Heafield to beam them some equipment they required. At the morning senior staff briefing Fowler did mention that Heafield was one of the other ships which had five androids added to their roster. How ironic, Hank sneered out loud, which earned him a stern look from the Captain. Not that he cared too much about that, it was rather the opposite, he was kind of curios to meet some other androids.

Just a couple of days earlier Hank had had his first counseling session with Markus and by all means it went far better than Hank anticipated. He had thought it was gonna be an absolute disaster. However, it went... good. Hank didn't even need to spill his guts all over again, because, quoting Markus, he “uploaded all of the logs and notes from the previous counselor right into his memory core” and they pretty much bounced off from where Hank was left off with T'Lar a month ago. They scheduled a weekly appointment, so Hank was just glad to put this off his mind. A lingering glimpse of worry that counseling was fruitless still persisted, but at the same time he knew that after a while it would fade back.

After the briefing Hank was at Jimmy's, counting moments until the Alpha shift begins, sipping on his raktajino and forcing his mind to wake up, even though he had been awake for a couple of hours by then. Reed was there too, sitting opposite of him, munching on his breakfast. The silence suited them both perfectly and frankly neither of them were the best characters to talk to in the morning.

But soon enough their silence was interrupted by Lieutenant MacAuslan, who somehow, as always, managed be her bubbly self even at ass o’clock.

“Hey, fellas,” she chirped, putting her own tray with her food down, taking a seat beside Hank. “Hav’ you seen the new guy?” her voiced dropped in volume.

Reed stopped chewing and lifted his head from his plate, while Hank tried to quickly access the security roster in his head, but after failing to locate anyone who he hadn’t met since their latest crew update back on Earth, he lifted his gaze from his mug to MacAuslan.

“Who’re you talking about?” he grumbled, his brain refusing to cooperate.

She blinked at him, widely and intentionally and then tipped her head to the side a couple of times, obviously pointing somewhere. Or, rather, at someone.

A man, possibly a human, was sitting four empty tables apart from them, busy typing away something on his pad. The table that he was sat at was empty, not even a drink was present and the man himself was dressed in civvies, sporting no combadge.

“Why do you care about a civilian?” Reed voiced a thought that had only started forming in Hank’s mind.

“Oh, but that’s no ordinary civilian,” she stabbed a green bean on her plate with a fork and then pointed it at Gavin almost menacingly. “Josh here,” she took a sip of her drink, “is an android. Who’s a civilian. I heard he’s an aspiring writer or somethin’.”

Hank set his mug on the table, and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Rhona, how many times do I have to tell you to stop indulging in gossip?”

“It’s not like there’s a regulation on that,” she heard her mumble after a small pause. Hank rubbed a side of his face and went back to take his mug into his hands.

“You’re set on doing everything so it becomes one,” that earned him a snort from Gavin. Hank shook his head and sighed, as the two officers continued eating in silence and he stared into the nothingness again. An android civilian? That was curious, now. Was he kicked out of the academy or he never applied in the first place? He let the thought flow lazily through his mind without digging deep into it, as he knew that apart from the fact that there was one more civilian under his protection, everything else wasn’t any of his business.

However his thought process was interrupted by the sound of his combadge. He clicked on it without taking his eyes off the nothing that he was starting at.

“Anderson here,” he grumbled.

“Lieutenant,” Connor’s voice chirped through the badge, “your presence is required on the bridge.”

What the hell was Connor doing on the bridge?

Hank glanced at the screen near the entrance to the lounge that displayed the time. “My shift starts in 15 minutes, can’t it wait?”

“I’m afraid no, sir. Captain insisted that you should come up here right away.”

“Then why didn’t the Captain com me himself—” he started raising his voice but the echo of Fowler grunting in the background made him cut himself off. “I’ll be up there in a few,” he clicked on his badge not waiting for a reply, gulped the rest of his raktajino in one go and got up from his seat.

The halls of the ship were full of tired Gamma shift officers, however with the Alpha shift he ship was truly waking up but Hank could never truly share that and not being a morning person or a people person overall had nothing to do with that.

The bridge greeted him with a sight of a planet system on a view screen and four officers, including Fowler and Connor standing over the tactical panel, discussing something fervently.

“What’s happening?” he announced his presence as he walked up to the panel himself.

“Great, you’re here. Something’s up with one of the planets in this system and it’s still way too early for me to decide on this on my own,” Fowler did look exactly the way Hank felt at that moment. He snorted.

“And that needed my immediate presence? Where’s Chris?”

“He’s in sickbay, mending a broken arm that he injured skiing in the holodeck.”

Hank had to roll his eyes at that; with his corner vision saw his Gamma shift substitute trying to hide a smile behind his hand.

“Lieutenant, report,” he aimed that at the officer and the latter straightened immediately, putting a serious expression on his tired face.

“This is an M-class planet, nothing unusual here. But what really intrigues the captain—,” Hank couldn’t tell on what he was emphasizing more - the intriguing part or Fowler. Fowler tried his best to glare at the officer, “It is interesting that Starfleet has already completed a survey of this sector. And the only planet capable of life support had been going through one of the earliest stages of it’s natural development at that point. By all the estimates it still should”

“So, only plant life and volcanoes?”

“Yessir. However, now we’re reading two lifesigns on this planet that could possibly be humanoid. And that’s not the strangest thing.”

Hank raised an eyebrow at that. He started to realize that there was no way he could let this situation unravel by itself and these people were actually expecting him to give a proper opinion.

Shit.

“The strangest thing is, as had mentioned Lieutenant Park, Starfleet has already surveyed this sector and its planets. Except that it happened 134 years ago,” Connor who has been silent ever since Hank step foot on the bridge finally spoke up.

“Say what?” Hank blinked at him.

Connor turned his head at the viewscreen, his chin lifted, and put his hands behind his back.

“Records of USS Sakharov contain a complete report on the research of the 3rd planet of this system. Which is the only M-class planet in the system. Starfleet could not spare the means to explore planets that could not provide life support for the officers to many ships, thus this planet was the only one that had been researched.”

“Feels like you’re trailing here a bit, Connor,” Hank remarked, his own eyes looking at Lieutenant Park, who was trying his hardest to suppress a yawn.

Connor looked back at Hank.

“As Lieutenant Park said, the report says that the planet was going through one of the earliest stage of its development. According to the data provided by the officers back in 2242, there was no animal life present. The planet was completely deserted bar plant life.”

Hank thought that it was way to early for this. He could think that at any point of day at anything though, he bitterly thought right after.

“So, you’re saying that there’s supposed to be no one here but yet there is?”

“Precisely.”

“Park, as you were, go get some rest,” the lieutenant departed with a quiet “thanks, sir”. “So it’s either someone is just visiting this planet or someone was marooned there.”

“Our sensors detect no distress signals.”

“I say you’re making a fuss out of this,” Hank said, weighing everything that had been poured on him, “what are the chances that something is really wrong down there?”

Connor blinked twice. “Do you want to hear a precise answer of the probability or was that a colloquialism?”

Hank could not even muster the strength to roll his eyes at that and at Fowler’s smirking mug. “Ya think there’s a reason we should go down there?”

“I say why not,” Fowler said, putting the smirk away, “I doubt it’s the Maquis or the Romulans this close to Federation space. It’s not a huge detour from the rendezvous point and we will still make it there on time. And I bet the biologists are gonna have a field day with all the plants.”

“Well, then let’s do it. Why did you have to call me up for this?” he really didn’t mean to sound this grumpy.

“’Cause I want you to lead the away team,” Fowler turned and made his way to the captain’s seat. “Not negotiable.”

At this point Hank did roll his eyes, feeling like showing Fowler the bird right there on the bridge.

“We’ll be entering orbit in 17 minutes, Captain,” Hank heard the ops officer say, so he looked back at Connor, who in turn was looking back at the viewscreen with his brows furrowed for some unknown reason.

“Connor,” Hank called him and the latter turned quickly, his face relaxing momentarily, “you’re coming with. Pass the word to Sickbay and the Biolabs, tell them to meet me in the transporting room in 20 minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” he made his way for the turbolift.

Hank knew exactly what Fowler was trying to do but he had no desire to press into the matter in front of everyone and arguing with him was a lost case by default. So while he knew that the captain meant well, he also knew that nothing would come out of spending a few hours on some dying planet.

 

***

 

That thought would echo in Hank’s mind some time later.

After beaming down, a bunch of medical officers and biologists were left at the beam-down point accompanied by a couple of security officers while Hank took Connor and Lieutenant MacAuslan with him, all three armed with phasers and tricoders, following the readings leading them to the lifesigns.

The weather on the planet was good and pleasant, its two suns shining brightly. It was quiet and almost serene, barely the sound of wind scraping on the leaves could be heard. There was a chunk of forest where the lifesigns were located according to the readings and they were cautiously making their way through the tall trees.

“Why were you on the bridge that early today?” Hank threw a brief look at Connor who wasn’t paying much attention to his tricoder, staring straight ahead. He caught himself on a thought that he really wished to know what his deal even was sometimes.

Hank looked back in his own tricoder.

“I was on shift.”

Hank almost felt MacAuslan turn her head sharply at Connor in sync with his own.

They kept walking.

“You were on shift? You mean the Gamma shift?”

“Yes, sir,” Connor’s face was unmoving, still staring ahead through the woods.

“How did I not know this? I’m your commanding officer, you of all people should know that such things should be coordinated with me,” he looked ahead then back at the tricoder, huffing quietly and ignoring MacAuslan’s quiet laugh that came right after.

“I’ve been standing in for Ensign Pisczcek, who was an operations officers but transferred to medical three weeks ago. Operations doesn’t fall under your command, therefore there would be nothing to coordinate with you,” Connor said without missing a beat once or even averting his eyes. Hank felt a pang of annoyance but also he suddenly felt defensive.

“So you’ve been taking two shifts for three weeks now?”

“Actually, I’ve also been taking Beta shift as an engineering officer ever since Detroit had left Station McKinley, where I had been reminded that my engineering skills need to be improved in case of emergency.”

Hank distinctly recalled that he was the one who sent Connor to engineering back then and he fought the urge to stop and put his phaser and tricoder down to get properly annoyed.

“Why have I never seen you in a red shirt— why hasn’t Ben told me— is this even okay for you? How the hell do you manage that?!” Hank kept that down to a rigid tone.

“If you will, Lieutenant, we can continue this discussion at a better time,” Hank turned to look at him and maybe mumble something about a court-martial, but Connor stopped dead in his tracks and turned 40 degrees to his left and actually squinted still looking ahead.

“Lieutenant, the readings show that the life signs are situated 5 metres from here,” MacAuslan said doing the same turn as Connor a moment later.

Right, the readings. He was still holding a tricoder in his hand. They were here on a mission.

He put his tricoder on his belt and gripped the phaser with two hands, “Alright, let’s see who’s waiting for us.”

That was the moment when he recalled thinking that nothing would come out of this mission and that it would be just another couple of hours doing nothing in an unknown terrain.

Two children, one probably in her teens and the other certainly younger than that, were lying under a tree with their eyes closed. Hank threw a quick look at MacAuslan tricoder to make sure that they were just sleeping and not blacked out or knocked out and was relieved to see that they were indeed just asleep.

“Shit,” quietly said MacAuslan and Hank couldn’t agree more.

What the hell they were supposed to do now? How come there were children, presumably human, on this supposedly devoted of any animal life planet just outside Federation bounds? Were they even real or were they all having hallucinations?

Hank looked at Connor, “Are you seeing that?”

If telepaths could read androids’ thoughts, maybe they were not immune to hallucinations as well.

Connor did look confused that time, “Are you asking if I’m seeing two children? Yes, I am. What kind of question is that, Lieutenant?”

“Nothin’, just checkin’ something,” Hank shook his head, figuring out a way how to approach this.

Whatever he was trying to compose went to hell not 20 seconds later, as the older child started moving and stretched slowly, opening her eyes a moment later. Hank immediately crouched down to not scare her too much.

She didn’t look scared, however. It was indeed like she had been waiting for someone.

“Sorry, we must’ve fallen asleep,” she rubbed her eyes and shook the younger child gently, waking him up. There was something off with her Standard but Hank could not pinpoint what exactly. He should’ve thought that something was seriously wrong right there when he heard her speak.

She gave them three a good look and her face tightened at once as she put her arm around the younger boy shoulders protectively, pushing him closer to her body.  
“Who are you?” she asked warily, her eyes going back at forth at each of them.

“I’m Hank, this is Rhona and Connor,” he pointed at them respectively, “we are of Federation,” he tried as this was as neutral ground as any.

“I can see the badges, you’re Starfleet, but your uniforms are different. I’ve never seen those,” she pressed on the word never and Hank felt a bit uneasy, partially because she hasn’t introduced herself back.

“Phew, it’s not surprising you still haven’t, they were only issued three days ago! We’re the first one to wear them!” MacAuslan lied quickly and way too enthusiastically to be believable but the girl didn’t say anything in return, though she looked a bit less skeptical now.

“Pan, why does he have a blue circle on his head?” the girl just opened her mouth to say something as the little kid interrupted and pointed somewhere up, which was obviously Connor but the girl quickly swatted his arm down, her eyes still moving.

“Lieutenant, may I have a moment?” Connor ignored the kid completely.

“We’re kinda in the middle of something here, Connor,” Hank gritted through his teeth, feeling a bit anxious at what could possibly be going through the girl’s head.

“It’s very urgent, Lieutenant,” he put his hand on Hank’s shoulder and Hank turned his head and looked up at him.

Connor was looking intently at the kids, his mouth pressed in a thin line and the LED spinning mixing blue and yellow.

“Rhona, if you’d stay here, please,” Hank didn’t look at her and stood up, feeling anxiety blooming in his gut.

“Lieutenant, I was able to identify the children,” Connor said right as they were out of the earshot of the kids and MacAuslan.

“But that’s good, right? Why couldn’t you say that right there?” Hank looked back at the children, who were listening to something Rhona was telling them. The anxiety kept growing, pulling at his stomach.

“They’ve been identified as Admiral Pansy Leyton and her younger brother, Doctor Jamie Leyton,” Hank inhaled sharply when Connor called the ranks, feeling like he’s in some feverish dream. “Pansy Leyton was killed in action 94 years ago and was given the rank of admiral posthumously. Her brother Jamie retired 37 years ago and passed away 25 years ago at the age of 118.”

“What the fuck?” Hank looked back at him. “Connor, what the hell does it mean?”

“However, there’s something else. Their mother, Tilda Leyton, was the First Officer on USS Sakharov,” Connor paused as if giving Hank the time to trump down what he had told him but that new piece of info still didn’t strike Hank as very explanatory. Might say it made everything even more bizarre.

“You’re saying there’s a huge chance that they actually stepped foot on this planet?”

Connor nodded. Hank noted that even though Connor was looking at him, his stare was as if adrift some place else. Like something kept deriving his attention.

“Any theories in your bucket of bolts? I’m open for suggestions,” he then clicked on his combadge, “Trent, get your people here, now, we’re not that far into the woods, just follow our signs.”

Connor kept his stare fixed somewhere, blinking slowly.

With the medics called up, Hank had to think of what had to be done next. It wasn’t unheard of that some aliens who were way more advanced and progressed than humanoids were at power to perform something like this, or some just enjoyed playing tricks on the unlucky visitors of their habitat. The anxiety was still scratching at his insides, making him feeling nauseous. If the kids were just someone’s lost children it would be easier, even bittersweet anyway though he doubted anyone wanted to be praised as rescuers in this.

“Lieutenant, something’s wrong,” Connor spoke up again and Hank turned to look at him to see him staring ahead of himself again.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“No, Lieutenant, something is wrong with this planet,” he blinked forcefully now, the LED on his temple whirring a mix of yellow and red.

“Connor, you better start explaining yourself,” Hank absolutely didn’t mean to start pulling rank or else but the uneasiness kept spreading, pooling in his chest, making him restless. He wanted to curse Fowler for making him go down here.

“Hank?” Fowler’s voice chirped from his combadge. Speak of the devil.

“We’re in the middle of something here, Jeff, I’ll com you back later.”

“I mean, sure. But you’ve been gone for about 30 hours now and there was no word from you, so I had to check out,” Hank stared at his combadge like it was about to blow up. Thirty hours? They’ve been gone for barely 40 minutes. “We really gotta get going soon if we don’t want Heafield to wait for us. Allen’s gonna be pissed,” Fowler sounded absolutely nonchalant.

Finally Hank started connecting the dots in his head.

“Yeah. Uhm, yeah, we’re good. Listen I’ll get back at you in—,” he paused, trying to come up with a sufficient amount of time that would settle as an equivalent of how fast the time passed here. “I’ll get back at you in a moment, Jeff,” he clicked the badge, disrupting the transmission before Fowler could get a word in.

This was bad.

“Connor, I really would love to hear that explanation now.” he heard the rest of the away crew approach them and gestured them to MacAuslan and the kids; the former was looking worryingly in his direction. He looked back at Connor.

“I can’t come up with anything, sir,” for a moment Hank thought that he sounded lost. An android lost for words; failing to come up with an explanation for the situation must’ve been really doing him in, Hank thought aimlessly.

“Fucking peachy,” he muttered.

“My main theory is that something is disrupting the natural progression of time. Something that affects the entire structure of this planet. However, this doesn’t explain why do we feel the passage of time at a different rate. As Captain Fowler said, more than a day have passed on Detroit, while it has been,” Connor stopped for a brief moment, blinking, “about 40 minutes since we beamed down.”

Hank crossed his arms over his chest, frowning.

“But you did feel the difference. And you’ve been acting,” he gulped, looking for the right word,”... off? Making approximate calculations is not exactly your style, for one. No offense.”

“None taken. You are correct,” Connor straightened his back for whatever reason and put his hands behind his back, “Time here is erratic, unstable. At first I thought that maybe something was wrong with my systems, that maybe the layers of the planet’s structure consist of some elements that could irritate them. Like an allergy to a humanoid, I suppose.”

“... or maybe you started going off your rocker because you overloaded yourself with working overtime?” Hank grumbled, not helping himself with a jibe. Connor did look a little bit offended this time, just barely squinting his eyes in reply.

“Hearing the captain say how much time has passed on the ship refuted that, Lieutenant.”

“Okay, whatever,” Hank lifted his hands in defeat, palms outward, “this isn’t out biggest problem right now. Well, it is. But we also have two kids who apparently have been both dead and gone for a long time. The more we chit chat down here, the more time passes up there and explaining shit to Jeff is the last thing I want to do right now,” he glanced at the crew members, that rounded up the two kids again, sighing.

“Let’s go,” he gestured for Connor to follow him. With each step he took the dread of having to explain the children what had happened to them grew more and more.

“Lieutenant, the kids are in perfect health,” Kara chirped as soon as they came within her earshot. Hank grumbled affirmatively in response, his mind blank on what he was supposed to do or say. Maybe comming Jeff and telling him everything that they had witnessed here was the right decision. But he didn’t have much time, if such concept even existed on this planet after all. He threw a brief glance at Kara, who was looking at her tricoder, punching some numbers in. She blinked forcefully, her LED spinning yellow for a few short moments and she shook her head slightly.

“Something you’re not telling me?” Hank threw her way.

Kara lifted her head. “No, Lieutenant. But there’s something wrong with this planet.”

“Yeah, Connor here already told me that whatever goes down here makes your android brain do cartwheels. This happened again now?”

“Yes, sir” she said and with the corner of his eye Hank saw Connor nod to confirm.

Just as Hank looked back at the kids, both of whom at this point looked extremely lost and confused and weren’t paying MacAuslan much attention anymore, his combadge beeped again. Shit. If this was Fowler again, then it was fucking bad because who could even suggest how time was operating here comparing to up there.

Hank clicked the combadge.

“Hank?” shit, it was Fowler. This was fucking bad.

He slapped the nearest officer on the shoulder and pointed at the kids and went back to be out of the kids’ earshot.

“Jeff, listen,” he still tried to keep his voice low for good measure, “there’s something fucking wrong down here. No one’s injured, no fatalities, but there are two kids who are kinda supposed to be decorated Starfleet officers.”

Fowler was silent for a few moments. “What?!”

“Yeah and here’s the catch: they’ve both been dead for a long time too.”

“You’ve only decided to tell me about this now?” Obviously Jeff wasn’t happy because waiting out definitely was a wrong move on Hank’s part, “After spending almost two days on this planet with radio silence?”

“Wait, what?” Hank blurted out without thinking.

“I said you spent exactly 30 hours on the planet without reporting back once,” Hank blinked, trying to get his thought process in full motion, “and only now you’re saying there’s trouble.”

Fuck.

“Look, Jeff, I’ll explain everything as soon as I can,” he turned his head back to the sound of commotion and saw that the girl was stood up, covering her brother with her body, her face angry. “We’re going up now.” he cut off the transmission and immediately made his way back, comming the transporting room, hoping that no leaps happened in the meantime.

Hank felt the tingle of his atoms being taken apart and felt miserable with himself for leaving the kids out in the dark on what was going on. Then everything went dark.

  
***

 

“Mom, I swear, no one hurt us. They actually looked kinda worried for us for some reason. The doctors were here.”

“You cannot trust strangers, Pansy. They could’ve hurt you. They wanted to take you away.”

Hank expected his head to throb. It wasn’t. It wasn’t heavy, so he wasn’t drugged or hit with something. He was sitting up, his back against something cold, but he wasn’t even tied up. The last thing he remembered was beaming back up to Detroit, except he never materialized back and he couldn’t remember anything.

He opened his eyes.

A Terran woman in her 40s, wearing an old fashioned Starfleet uniform was standing before him, her arms crossed on her chest. Two stripes on each sleeve: a first officer. The girl was standing beside her.

Hank blinked. He quickly looked around, while feeling both of their stares on him. He couldn’t quite place where he was; it was like every time he lost focus on the surroundings he immediately forgot where he was and how it looked like.

There was no one else but them.

“Where am I?” he tested the waters. “And where’s my crew?”

“I would like to be the one talking and asking questions here, for now,” she said. Her face was stern and tough, Hank didn’t doubt for a second that she wasn’t actually human.

“That’s fair,” he grumbled, cracking his neck.

“Mom, please—”

The woman ignored the girl, her eyes fixed on Hank. “You don’t have to tell me who you are or why you came here. I know. And I know that if I send you back on your way, some of you would come back soon enough.” Hank blinked, waiting for her to continue.

“I guess that you want an explanation.” she sighed, her expression softening.

“Where’s my crew?” he asked again.

“Your people are safe, don’t worry. They’re all asleep... except for two of them, but they’re cooperating well,” she uncrossed her arms and snapped her fingers. Kara and Connor blinked into existence near her, both standing, their faces expressionless.

“Curious machines,” she said looking them up and down. Hank inhaled forcefully at that, still waiting on her to continue with her tirade. Damn these aliens and their corny speeches.

“Anyway, as you must’ve realized, I’m not from around here,” she motioned at herself, “this isn’t even my true form, just a familiar picture for my kids.” Hank just realized that the girl was still here, listening to everything but she didn’t seem to be bothered even in the slightest. “And they are... not who they were out there,” she continued solemnly. “I was exiled from the place that I once called home. I found this little planet, deserted and perfect for me to wallow in my resent.” she put an arm around the girl’s shoulder, hugging her closely.

Hank noticed that Kara was looking at the girl attentively, her face almost worried.

“Until some of your kind payed a visit. And then I realized that I was lonely,” she winced. “Loneliness, what a strange emotion. I was sure I wasn’t capable of it but I was made a fool.”

“Happens to the best of us,” Hank smiled sarcastically, almost grimaced. The tirade was so textbook, he wanted to laugh: boohoo, I’m a loner, my kind didn’t accept me, that’s why I stole a bunch of human kids to make myself happy, I’m so misunderstood.

“Don’t be crass with me, Hank,” she pressed on the name and it shook him up a bit; his fists balled up before he could even think that there was a possibility that either one of the kids or Connor or Kara told her his name. “I know you,” she took a step closer, bending a little to put her face at the same level as his, “I know that’s something you understand like no other.”

“Went around digging in my head, didn’t you.” he lifted his chin a little, carefully trying to control the irritation that was bubbling up within him. He should be at least thankful that he wasn’t tied up, he thought.

“You keep it all on the surface, it wasn’t that hard,” she smirked, standing up. “Isolation makes you weak and feeble,” Hank had an urge to snarl. He lifted moves his eyes at Connor to see that he was looking right back, squinting a little. “Looking at the children, I felt... affection. Desire for companionship,” she ruffled the girl’s hair. She looked down at her and smiled.

“So you just did... what? Copied them?”

“You can say as much,” she shrugged. “I don’t expect you to understand. Or maybe I do. But they do know I’m their mother. I look like her, I have her voice. They do not age, nothing bad is happening to them. I care for them, I nurture them; they’re safe with me.”

“Huh,” Hank rubbed his face, “so that’s what this going back and forth in time thing is all about.”

“Are you controlling the entire structure of the planet?” Connor popped in, his voice genuinely curious. Hank barely suppressed a snort at this; the question surprised him so much he almost forgot he was kind of angry.

“I don’t see or process time the way you do, boy,” the woman said sharply, turning her head to Connor. The irritation made itself known again. He felt tired all of a sudden, wanting to go back to the ship and forget about this entire situation. “It’s just something I do.”

Hank exhaled loudly. “Just tell us what you want and send us on our way.”

“I want nothing to do with you. I just wish your kind would not bother me and my children again. We’re doing fine.”

Hank crossed his arms. He realized he was still sitting on the floor but somehow he couldn’t move. He contemplated for a while; nothing about this was great. Were the kids brainwashed? Was she... reprogramming them to believe they were fine? Kara did say that the kids were perfectly healthy.

“You know it’s not something I can just do on a whim. Can you let me stand up?” he felt a sudden desire to stand up and found that he could actually do it this time. “Look, all that crap you said about wanting companionship, whatever. But treating another kind like they belong to you, we can’t exactly let you do this.”

“I do not treat them like this!” she raised her voice, “they know I care! They feel it! Do not accuse me of something you yourself are too much of a coward to do!”

Hank swallowed forcefully, anger prickling at his chest. “Don’t try to buy me with this shit. You want to be left alone, fine. You want the kids? Whatever you did with them, they’re Federation citizens. You have to at least let us establish contact with them,” he was losing his patience fast, but he was rational enough to realize that he had almost next to nothing against a potentially omnipotent alien. “No one will touch you. But they’re humans. It’s something that we kinda do here,” he looked at Kara and Connor.

Connor was looking at Hank again. A sting of shame pulled at Hank’s stomach and he winced internally.

He looked back at the woman.

She looked annoyed, deep in thought. Then she extended her arm and a Starfleet combadge appeared in her palm. “Will this be enough?”

“It should be tuned to the right frequence,” Connor said, lifting up his arm to the badge, but the woman closed her palm, snatching it away.

“It is. I’m going to leave it for them. Now go. I’m going to put you back in that place in time where you were when you wanted to leave.”

“Listen, if you think it’s all that it takes—” and then they all were in the transporting room. Hank looked around and did a quick headcount: everyone was present.

“Fucking hell, why do they always do that,” he murmured, getting off the pad.

“Ya say that like you meet some aliens with a parent complex ev’ry day,” he heard MacAuslan say to his back.

He slowed down, letting her catch up to him. “What, she talked to you too?”

“Ay. Gods, that was boring. Felt like I was watchin’ some 21st century holomovie.”

“Couldn’t’ve said it better myself,” he grumbled and MacAuslan laughed.

He rubbed his face, making his way to the turbolift, wanting nothing more but to fall into his bed and pass out for a couple of days.

“Hank, to my ready room, right now,” chirped Fowler from his combadge and Hank wanted to scream.

No one but a lieutenant and a couple of ensigns, whose names Hank couldn’t remember if his life depended on it were on the bridge. Hank rang the doorbell to the captain’s ready room and the doors opened immediately; Markus was standing there, ready to leave. He pressed his mouth into a small smile and nodded.

Hank grumbled a greeting and went past him. Jeff was looking out of his small window, looking in the nothingness behind it.

“Hey, Jeff,” Hank took a seat in front of the desk and Fowler turned around. He looked tired, like he had just woken up; Hank looked at the clock on the wall behind Fowler and figured that was the case.

He tried to go into as much detail as his tired brain could allow him. Jeff was listening carefully, regarding him with a curious glance once or twice.

“And then she just zapped you back?” he asked when Hank was finished.

“As you can see. We’re all fine too. Whatever we do next is all up to you, Jeff.”

Fowler huffed. “Like it’s easy.”

“I’m not saying it is. Hell, I completely misread the situation there myself. But we don’t know what she’s really capable of.”

“No, you’re right. I’m glad you did what you did. She could’ve killed someone or worse, destroy the ship,” he sighed, turning slightly to access his computer, “Go get some rest. I’ll check in with Starfleet Intelligence and tell them everything you’ve told me.”

“The kids really were okay, Jeff. If she wanted to harm us or anyone, I’m sure she would’ve done it in a blink of an eye.”

“I believe you, Hank. But it’s out of our reach now,” he started typing away before looking at Hank one more time. “Good night, Hank. We got a journey ahead of us.”

Hank stood up, feeling awkward and discouraged for some reason and left the room, making his way to the turbolift.

The corridors were kind of empty, because they were sent back during the Gamma shift and most of the ship was asleep. They were set to get back on their way to the rendezvous first thing in the morning.

It wasn’t Hank’s problem anymore and he just wanted some deserved rest after being thrown around by some freaky alien.

The turbolift doors opened and he saw Connor standing in front of them, hands behind his back, posture perfect, as always.

“What, you going back on shift?” he walked past him to get to his quarters.

“No, sir,” Connor followed him. “I’m actually here to tell you that I took off Gamma shift.”

Hank stopped and looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “You wanted to tell me that in person?”

“I did promise you to continue the conversation at a later time. And you were right, you’re my senior officer and I should’ve notified you.”

Hank snorted and continued walking, Connor following shortly.

“Damn right you should’ve. But don’t tell me that it was that lady, trying to parent human kids that made you rethink that.”

Connor briefly looked at Hank this time and then looked away. “No. But maybe there was something in what she said about having desire of companionship.”

“Huh.” Hank shook his head a little. Connor was trying to make friends with him? What a crazy fucking day.

“I wanted to invite you to spar with me. Holodeck 3, tomorrow at 1830 hours,” they stopped, as they approached Hank’s quarters.

“A’ight, I’ll bite. Why me?” he leaned on the wall with his shoulder, crossing his arms over his chest.

Connor tilted his head a little and blinked a few times. “Because I find you a worthy opponent,” Hank actually snorted at that, “which means that I can lower my strength just a little to prevent myself from seriously hurting you,” and he couldn’t help himself from a short laugh.

Connor had a little smile on his face and that’s something Hank thought he wouldn’t see.

“Holy shit. I can’t believe this. Good night, Connor,” he punched in his door’s passcode, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You neither confirmed or denied my invitation, sir,” Connor’s voice followed him into his room.

“God yeah, I’ll see you at the holodeck too. Don’t lower your settings too much,” he turned around but Connor was gone and the doors closed a second after.

“What a fucking asshole,” Hank grumbled to himself, but he realized he didn’t feel that tired anymore.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHEW this was something. i still have almost the entire story planned out so don't worry about that!!! i hope it reads like star trek episodes because that's what i'm aiming at. if you haven't watched star trek..... pls do. if you don't want to then it's ok and i hope you're still enjoying this little story. come talk to me on twitter!!! im @sputniksickle


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